Idiot box vs magic box

Each time someone mentions about those stupid sappy soap operas, I literally cringe. I guess partly because I found them outrightly ridiculous and other part saved methe embarrassment from being called a lazy incompetent couch potato. Need I say, this was in India. Our mothers and grandmothers and all those bored people from the previous generation somehow relish these saas bahu sagas. I wonder why?

 

 

 

Maybe that’s the only form of spice, besides their food, that they get all day. I love television, don’t get me wrong ,but things that are more life like and real. If I survived on only ‘Indian’ television , I would be famished and like how! So back then, I clung onto some good shows that occasionally saw the light of day which were far and few in between.

 

 

 

I remember reaching Los Angeles after a long flight and turning on the magic box. I was totally confused at first but once I learnt my way around it, it was truly magical. There is just too much variety, that sometimes you end up spending all your time just browsing and enjoying the options. Drama series, reality TV, food networks, Funny home videos, HBO movies, Video on demand , insightful documentaries, celebrity talk shows , entertainment and gossip channels and oodles of comedy central-now that’s more like it.

 

 

 

The funny part is that sometimes, I stumble across shows that have a familiarity to them and then I remember the replica that I saw in India. Why does India need to copy everything and everyone.-right from fashion to Television to movies? With so many creative geniuses that live there, why can’t there be originality? The funny part is that most city people end up watching the original American shows like American Idol or dancing with the stars along with their desi counterparts. Now that is embarrassing. And the worse part is , just like a cheap designer knockoff, these desi shows have very little soul of their own. What they do have is overwhelming and over dramatic emotions. When queen bee Ekta Kapoor decided to make these pathetic excuses in the name of television, she didn’t anticipate that middle aged women across the nation would enjoy living through topsy turvy emotions that they otherwise hardly experience. She has made otherwise boredhousewives into drama queens. I can bet Ms. Kapoor hardly watches these unoriginal, time wasting, repetitive sagas herself. From where I stand, Television has replaced books, so they better be a good and a wholesome substitute. When you continue feeding filth and dirt to the nation day after day, it will get full one day and spit it all out. So watch out for that day!